School days =
Subtitle: Chemin-d'école
By: Patrick Chamoiseau ; translated by Linda Coverdale.
Contributors: Coverdale, Linda.
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Lincoln
Language: eng
Number of pages: 146
Subjects: West Indies, French -- Fiction
Other titles: Chemin-d'école
Description: School Days (Chemin-d'ecole) is a captivating narrative based on Patrick Chamoiseau's childhood in Fort-de-France, Martinique. It is a revelatory account of the colonial world that shaped one of the liveliest and most creative voices in French and Caribbean literature today.

Through the eyes of the boy Chamoiseau, we meet his severe, Francophile teacher, a man intent upon banishing all remnants of Creole from his students' speech. This domineering man is succeeded by an equally autocratic teacher, an Africanist and proponent of "Negritude." Along the way we are also introduced to Big Bellybutton, the class scapegoat, whose tales of Creole heroes and heroines, magic, zombies, and fantastic animals provide a fertile contrast to the imported French fairy tales told in school.

In prose punctuated by Creolisms and ribald humor, Chamoiseau infuses the universal terrors, joys, and disappointments of a child's early school days with the unique experiences of a Creole boy forced to confront the dominant culture in a colonial school.